


Nemo My Name

by PyrettaGrimmling



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, M/M, Multi, QVP, Queer Villains, Villains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-21 12:44:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20693744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PyrettaGrimmling/pseuds/PyrettaGrimmling
Summary: This is the story of Nemo: A young superpowered woman pushed down the path of villainy and made an enemy of society by twisted machinations. This is a story with some deeply dark themes, occasional gore, traumatic elements (and honest depiction of trauma), alongside lighter moments in a generally dramatic arc. Lots of WLW content (Author is a lesbian) but will have plenty of generally queer content as well.





	1. Chapter 1

They had already been chasing me for a block. Hold on, let me slow down. Hey, my name is Nemo, or at least it is now. I’ve just been framed for murder.  
It had been a sunny warm day, towards the end of summer. I was dressed up for the sun, pan pride tank top and short shorts showing off my cybernetic arms and legs (I'd had my limbs, external torso and spine all replaced, as I had no desire to succumb to the weakness of flesh, and I had money, so why not?). The left side of my head was buzzed short but still red as fire, the rest all brushed to the right and falling down in a ginger wave, catching the sun like a flare. 

Perfect day and perfect look for joining the local pride parade for a bit, then, which I had, making sure my red sunglasses (gold rim- hey, style is priceless) were on firmly. Oh, why was I doing that? Because my eyes were rainbow-hued. They shifted and swirled and changed in hue, but there was always a little bit of each of the colours of the rainbow in them. Beautiful, but uh. . . people tend to freak when your eyes aren’t even consistently one colour.  
So I kept em hidden. A shame, said my girlfriend. Safe, I said. (She shut me up with kisses after that). We’d spent the day together at the local Pride, happy, in the bright and loud parade with kith and kin, and I was just sat inside a cafe with my love Irene, sharing a coffee and watching the sun sink in the sky.  
“Hey, love?” She looked at me over her black coffee. She was striking- long black frizzy hair, soft amber eyes, pale skin picking them out as islands of warmth, alongside her freckles. She was dressed in a simple black dress with a skull and crossbones print, with a wide floppy-brim black felt hat and sandals- all picking out her soft frame into a powerful, motherly witchy figure. “I need to go to stretch my legs for a minute. Be right back.”  
I nodded and smiled. “See you in a minute.” I looked down at my coffee- some ridiculous mocha confection, mostly milk, cream and sugar- and took a sip, thinking. What did I actually wanna do in life? 

I had the girl of my dreams (seriously, Irene was amazing), I had money- mama sure didn’t lack for any of that and she loved me- i could take any educational opportunity or career I wanted.  
And yet, despite all this choice, I’m going nowhere fast. Oh well. . . at least it’s pleasant.  
That was when anxious, loud talking from outside the door interrupted me just after I finished my coffee.  
“. . . she’s not here, I don’t know who you’re looking for.” Irene. I listened raptly. She sounded worried. Then another voice- angry, aggressive, deep.  
“I’m telling you, I’m looking for . . .” at this point, I dropped my coffee cup because I was listening too intently. The shattering broke my daze, and I stood up, fairly confident I'd heard my name from the stranger. If they were worrying my Irene, then I probably should back her up.  
I opened the door and saw exactly what was happening and uh. . . give me a moment, this is hard.  
She was talking to this guy in a long brown coat, and he was wearing some kind of beret. He looked like he was some old French Resistance larper, but as soon as he saw me he instantly pulled a gun out. The gun had a red trefoil on the side- the symbol of transhuman hate, those who saw those who were either born different or became different as a threat to them.  
His finger was on the trigger and it was pointed straight at me. Time stopped, as he pulled it, something pushed me aside. A spurt of blood. Irene. Irene. Irene.  
Irene was dead. She'd pushed me out of the way, as his finger had gone for the trigger. And the bullet that would have killed me killed her instead. He swore under his breath, and threw the gun at me, running away.

Then my brain, on autopilot, caught the gun. Still smoking. That's when I heard the boots. "Hey, what the hell? You with the gun, hands up!" I dropped the gun as soon as I heard, and turned around. Three officers, all men, white, all pointing guns at me.  
"What the fuck did you kill her for? Hands in the air!" barked the one in the front. He looked older, and had a bit of a red tinge to his cheeks. Gammon looking motherfucker.  
"I didn't! This isn't my gun! I don't even have a gun, i'm not-!" I started to protest, but he just waved his gun at me again.  
"You're under arrest as a suspect. Though i think it's an open-and-shut case, you were here holding a smoking gun and there's someone with a neat hole where their head used to be. You're dead meat, bitch." He stepped forward, reaching for a pair of handcuffs as I slowly raised my hands-  
No. No, fuck this. I'm not meekly putting up with being accused - hell, convicted- of murdering my beloved. Fire raged in my veins, and as my hands slowly raised I lunged, moving as fast as my prosthetic legs would take me. Crashing straight through all three assholes, bowling them over, I sprinted into the narrow alleys. Hearing shouting behind me, I kept running, cornering, turning, weaving, trying not to keep a consistent path.

They had already been chasing me for a block. Yep, we're back here. I was running on pure adrenaline, no idea where to go. Then I saw the entrance to the local subway- maybe I could run along the tracks and duck into the maintenance accesses and lose them in those tunnels. The subway here was a real mess, being made by engineering supers in the 50's who could perform downright miracles had allowed for a far more complex system, with so many labyrinthine access tunnels needed. Running down in, I was knocking people out of the way- scrambling down the stairs as fast as I could as police goons came down the stairs too. I leapt over the turnstiles and down onto the tracks, checking the time- nothing due for fifteen minutes, we were good.

Looking behind me, I regretted thinking we were good. Not only was there a dozen officers with batons and pistols after me- only not shooting because of the crowd- but there was two assholes in white and red spandex. The Elsen Girls, Maria and Lizzie Elsen. Model cop superhero girls, both white and perfectly made up, the picture of everything the fashion industry considered beautiful (blue eyed and blond haired, what a surprise. . . ). They were also good christian girls and married lifetime lesbians, pure and blah blah blah dear god did I ever despise the Elsen Girls, and i'd known them since college (i didn't find them as intolerable when i was just a horny teenager, go figure).  
Because they were also constantly in the media. Busty superheroines arresting criminals made for good publicity, even more so if they were a sickeningly cute couple. They had a claim that they'd been faithful to each other since the day they knew they were gay, which made me giggle - i'd been responsible for Maria Elsen's - ahem- awakening in college, but that was besides the point. They were living tasers, each capable of channeling enough electricity to straight up kill you or cause serious damage, and they were on my tail with a dozen cops.

I ran along the tracks as fast as I could, hearing a crackling behind me. I leapt towards the nearest of the big metal doors that lead into the maintenance tunnels, and just in time too, because just behind me an electric blast arced into the tracks, shocking me secondhand. "Ow! Fucking ow, Lizzie, what the hell?" I screamed, hoping maybe she'd still like me or something. Reaching for the door as she charged a second bolt and laughed, I leapt through just in time to see it suddenly heat to glowing from the blast. Shit, was she shooting to kill? I heard Maria yell something, and I ran down into the tunnels as they followed. I turned, snaked, ran-  
Shit. I'd just run into a large, open space, one of the old depots for constructing things down here, and there was no cover and good lighting. It may as well have been an open shooting gallery. I was halfway across when there was the loud crack of pistol fire, and it went straight past my head. I stopped, and time stopped. Well, good game everyone, i'd at least tried to get out of being arrested over my girlfriend being murdered in cold blood, but here I was about to be hauled off to jail not only under that charge but for resisting arrest. Great job everyone!  
I put my hands up slowly as i stopped, and I could hear the clack clack clack of the Elsen Girl's heels on the concrete. God they were insufferable, wearing high-fashion heels as part of classic spandex outfits? How much more male-gazey could you get?

"Fuckin knew you'd do it. You always were an unstable mess, and look at what happened. You were a selfish bitch, took Irene for yourself, and now you killed her. Fuckin knew it." Lizzie. She was the more mean-bitch of the two, and from my memories the more fanatically religious one (in a christian conservative sense, anyway) and oh yeah. . . she'd also had the hots for Irene, but Irene wanted nothing to do with her. Guess Lizzie never figured that out. I opened my mouth to speak but Maria was already talking.  
"Hey, there's got to be an explanation for this, calm down Lizzie honey. Like it or not, you know she was crazy for Irene, so this doesn't make sense. Hey, relax. You might be under arrest, but we'll get this figured out. Due process." Ah, Maria, ever the bootlicker.  
"Oh there's an explanation all right. Fucking anti-transhumanist fash asshole shot Irene, threw the gun at me, and in the time i was still shocked i caught it on autopilot, then dropped it the instant i was snapped out of it by someone yelling at me." I said, turning around slowly. Yep, a dozen guns leveled at me and both the Girls there. And nothing but open, well-lit space around me. Shit. . .

Lizzie snarled, and her hand crackled with charge. She slapped me, and with the slap was a jolt not unlike a taser. It knocked me down and my cybernetics spasmed- fucking ouch!- as i was on the floor, helpless and gasping. "Fuck you, what the hell?" was all I could manage.  
"Seriously, what the hell, Lizzie? Ugh, i'm gonna have to file a report about this. . . You know I don't approve of this, sweetheart, and you know I don't like doing that. . ." She stepped in between me and Lizzie, looking pointedly at her wife. Lizzie just rolled her eyes.  
"She murdered someone in cold blood. What the hell is *your* problem? You're normally the first to take a tazer slap to a piece of shit like this, 'sweetheart'."  
They were fighting. There were cracks between them.  
*I could use this* said a tiny voice in my head. An intrusive thought. *You could push them apart- claim you were having an ongoing affair with Maria since college and that's why she's defending you. Hell, maybe even just the shattering of their pure image would be enough to have them at each other's throats.* I tried to ignore it. I'd always struggled with intrusive thoughts suggesting all kinds of nasty behavior, and this was no different. *You want to survive, don't you? You don't want to be blamed for her death.*  
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Internal voice, whoever you are, you're right. . . but. . .  
"Funny how your beloved wife just isn't on your side today when you're sooooo clearly right." I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm. Oh shit, i was doing it. Oh gods. Heart hammering, i prepared myself to lie and cheat as never before, because fuck i'm not going to be blamed for her death!  
They both looked at me and Lizzie snarled again, charging her fists with lightning. "Not taking this." She said, before swinging at me with her fist-  
Which Maria neatly caught midair.  
"Stop it! She's not resisting arrest, deal with a little baiting would you?" she snapped.  
"Oh, yeah, Lizzie. If you're wondering why Maria is doing this, i just wanna say this: she's always been interested in me since college. 'Pure and innocent christian woman' my ass." Maria had been shocked into silence, and Lizzie was shaking with rage. "Hell, we've even been having an on-off affair." And that was all it took. Lizzie was already pissed at Maria for defending me when she hated me, and hearing that- well, she didn't bother to ask questions. No one does when they're that irrationally angry. Screaming and lashing at Maria with her charged fists, there was a large, loud bang of electricity, and a blinding flash as they started to fight. 

I ran. Ran through the tunnels, as only a couple of cops bothered to chase me, the fighting supers either blinding or pinning them. Ran as I dissociated, the world slipping into light and tunnels and the echoing of my feet. My ears still rung and my vision still flashed with retina-burn, but my mind was a million miles away. No one was chasing me anymore. That was good. I didn't care, my mind was busy, turning over what i'd just done. Who- what- who was I? Nemo, the name reflexively shot through my mind. It meant no-one, it was given to exiles as a name when they were cast out. I was an exile now, and a monster- turning two women who loved each other against each other, just so i could live? But I wasn't taking hate lying down. But nor was i submitting to a law that blamed me for what the results of that hate was.  
At this point, i'd made it outside into the suburbs, and it was quiet out here. I sat on a bench in a little park, unconcerned with the outside world, head in hands.  
Was I Nemo? Was I the outcast, the unholy and shunned? I was a monster. I'd done so much *wrong* there. I sobbed, and gripped my knees, tight, but then pushed myself upright.  
But I escaped. I survived. I'll keep being Nemo. I'll keep being no one and nothing, and surviving. Not till the hateful who killed Irene burn. Not till the monsters who blamed me for it pay, too. I'll. . .

I'll live on. For Irene. In any way I can.


	2. An Introduction to Villainy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (content warning for transphobia from parents, and general othering) A new friend. Some old enemies. Some not-so-old enemies. And a very, very nasty extremist conspiracy. All in this chapter! (Note: this is non-final, i'm going to write more. Stay tuned).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the story of Nemo: A young superpowered woman pushed down the path of villainy and made an enemy of society by twisted machinations. This is a story with some deeply dark themes, occasional gore, traumatic elements (and honest depiction of trauma), alongside lighter moments in a generally dramatic arc. Lots of WLW content (Author is a lesbian) but will have plenty of generally queer content as well.

I must have looked a real mess. I was sat on a park bench, with scorched skin, damaged clothes, a splattering of blood- Irene's blood!- and just, holding my head and crying.  
That was when two large, taloned hands grabbed me, and I was being carried along fast. What the-  
"Hey, what the hell are you doing?!" I looked up at who was carrying me. She was *big*. We're talking ten feet tall, covered in red scales, humanoid, but with seemingly vestigal draconic wings and oh yeah, built like a weightlifting champion. Which, for those of you who don't know, meant she had muscles like hell, with a thick layer of fat padding on top- only bodybuilders go for no fat!- and I was being carried like an infant at a frankly terrifying pace.  
"I might ask you the same, lady! But if you want to know-" at this point, she dove through a manhole into the tunnels under the city, we were back in the subway- "I'm rescuing you. You got tangled up bad with the Elsen girls- you're lucky I was paying attention to the CCTV down there!- and well, people like me, we like that. I'm taking you to somewhere you can hide from the police for a while and get your bearings, ok?" She spoke with a thick Bostonian accent, and her eyes were shocking emerald- a real contrast with the red of her scales. She was dressed in what I can only describe as a toga, but one with an odd design- all black, aside from a four-colour lightning bolt across the front. The lightning bolt was purple, green, orange and magenta.  
"Really? What's the difference between what you're doing and what the co- ow!". She'd lightly slapped me, but with her strength and weight it packed a punch.  
"Oh, damn, sorry, i forget my strength. . . no, please stop being silly, i have no intent to hurt you. They do. Hold on a sec, take a deep breath, and then close your mouth."  
I just did as I was asked- I could smell water, strongly chemically, like there was some main water pipe about. And I was right- we dived straight into a big, wide pipe full of water, rushing along. I was held tight as she searched along the side, my eyes shut as the water roared around us. Then we surfaced into a large room, with a concrete roof. Along the sides were several metal doors, with concrete walkways in front of them. Everything was so square and well. . . brutalist. I was set down on a grate next to the pool we'd just surfaced out of, my ears still ringing from the water.  
"Where. . . where are we?" I asked, still pretty stunned.  
"Lil safehouse of mine, deep underground and safe and well stocked, no one is finding us here. Name is Delaine, by the way. You?"  
"I don't even know anymore. Nemo. I guess. How long are you going to keep me here?" I asked. I felt like no-one, may as well take the moniker.  
"Fair enough, aint gonna pry, Nemo. You're welcome to stay here as long as you need- you're a guest here, but those burns are nasty and need attention."  
I sighed and looked this dragoness in the eye. The eye a good four feet up above me- ok, so I was small next to her- and shook my head. "How do I leave if I don't want to stay?" I asked.  
She pointed to the leftmost door of the seven steel doors in here- each big enough for her. "Through there is a little convenience called a random-walk teleport. You go through and activate it, and you'll be sent. . . somewhere. . . on the surface in around a ten mile radius. That way you can leave here without leaving a trail. You can thank the League for that, by the way." She cocked an eyebrow at me, as curiosity registered on my face.  
"Ok, you know what you're doing there. You're trying to get me to ask who or what the League are, because you think you have something to offer me- or rather, I have something to offer you, because you didn't just rescue me on a whim then mention this mysterious League for no reason. Close enough?" Delaine nodded. "What happens to me if I just walk out right now?"  
Delaine chuckled- a rich, hearty chuckle.  
"You show up in the surrounding countryside with second-degree burns all over you, with the police on your tail and no help." She sighed, and straightened up. "As for what I want with you, well. . . I'm Delaine Scutes, better known as the Scaled Bandit."  
My stomach dropped. The Scaled Bandit. That's where I recognized those emerald eyes from. "The bank-robber." I said. She snorted.  
"Yeah, the bank-robber who put that money towards sheltering disabled youth and building communities. You never hear both sides of the story. Anyhow, i'm part of the League of Villains- least, that's what we call ourselves. In truth, we're a loose community of superpowered people helping each other survive against the law, because the system spat us out and called us enemy." She straightened up at this point and walked over to one of the doors, third from the left, and opened it. "Come through here, you can get comfy and get some attention for those burns."  
I tried to stand up, and the pain of the burns almost had me doubling over. The adrenaline must have worn off. Delaine caught me as I stumbled, and picked me up again. "Whoa darling! You're not fit to go anywhere, damn. That tazer slap did a number on you. Oh, right, what you can offer us. One minute, let me get some cream on this big ol' burn." She laid me down on a bed, and tore away the burned bits of my shirt, before slathering burn cream on the skin underneath. I hissed through my teeth at the touch-ow ow ow ow motherfucker ow, burns hurt- but tried to stay still. I could feel the pain start to ease, as she finished up.  
"What you can offer us is well. . . I was watching the whole chase through CCTV, right? One of the rooms in here is all for that, when I saw you get away I was out of here like a thunderbolt. But you. . . I couldn't see you properly at all. You were a permanent blur, always out of focus. Any clip of your speech was artifacted to hell, too, I could barely understand it. And looking at the cameras in here. . . none of them can see you properly either."  
"Are you telling me. . . " She hushed me with a scaly talon pressed softly to my lips.  
"Then, well, once you were running away from the Elsen Girls, the cameras. . . just shorted out. First about a fifteen foot radius, from what the readings tell me, but then it pushed out to about thirty feet when you were just running. It was part of why you lost the cops. Up until then, they'd also been following you on the cameras, but whatever you did just completed crapped out the system. All they got was white noise. I had a hunch as to where to start looking for you outside the tunnels but it was sheer blind luck that meant I found you first. You've got superpowers, girl, and they make you a nightmare to surveillance."

I paused, and thought for a moment, as the cream tingled on my burns. "I was dissociating to shit when I was running from the Elsen Girls. I think I still am to some degree, which is probably why I've just accepted being saved by you, though you picking me up shocked me out of it a bit. But uh, "whatever I did" is also a mystery to me."  
She nodded like this was expected, and paused for a moment. "That's pretty usual. Active powers tend to break through during dissociation and whatnot, and take focus and work to consciously use. Like my flight."

"You can fly?!" I was a little stunned. Her wings seemed too small for her to be flight capable. . . they were practically decoration!  
"Heck yes I can. A little focus, and I can tell the laws of physics to eff off and make me weightless enough to fly under my own steam. For I am mighty!" She posed, flexing, and I burst out laughing. She did too, and we both relaxed. Under the laughter, though, I just felt numb. Nothing. Everything was a performance now.  
"But, yeah. . . you're a young superpowered woman, on the run from the law since you got on the wrong side of hatred, you seem like the ideal type for the League of Villains. The kind of person who needs our help and can help us in turn. We keep you safe from the law, we give you the space to learn yourself again, and in turn you do the same for others when the time comes. You wear the colours, in one way or another, and keep the creed- and you'll have us helping you. Now don't say anything yet- you should make the choice once you've healed. You're here as a guest till then."

"Doesn't really sound like I have a choice with the cops after me- hell am I supposed to do as a wanted criminal?"  
"You maybe don't, unless you think you can survive on your own, which if you can, good luck. Now, I've got places to be and people to catch, people to see about a young cyborg, so if you don't mind I gotta go for a bit. Nap if you can, and if you get hungry, next door to the right from here is ah, the kitchen. There's chicken soup ready to heat if you need something to eat."  
"Hey, one thing before you go. Well, two, really. . . one, you're just leaving me here alone when i could leave?" She nodded, and I nodded back. Trust. She was smart enough to offer trust first, when she had the advantage. "Second. . . where am I allowed to wander if I manage a little bit?"  
"Everything aside from the door with the big red X. That's sealed because it's falling apart behind there: the floor's unsafe. Door three is my bedroom, but that's more just a personal privacy please-don't-look-in-there, it's not like my 20 inch realistic dragon dildo will kill you but yeah, you don't really need to be seeing that." She laughed and I laughed, as she waved and left, diving into the water again.

Fifteen minutes after Delaine left I was crying my eyes out. The shock was starting to wear off, and i was feeling alone.

Without her. Irene had been my everything. She had been the first to see me without my eye contacts on as a kid- when I was 13 and she was 14, I lost my contacts and she showed up unexpectedly, but unlike when my mother saw me without them, she just looked at me calmly. "Hey, you have really cool eyes!" I remember her saying. "Why aren't they normally like that?" She was completely unfazed. I told her everything: How i'd been born with horns, or so Grandad said to me on my 12th birthday, when it was just him and me alone when mom and dad had gone to bed. How I normally wore contacts, because my mom and my dad said my eyes would scare people. She scowled when she heard that. "Your eyes are cute, and they're special and you." she said.  
I was pounding on the headboard of the bed and crying, barely noticing the (lessening) pain from the burn. Irene. Two years after that, I figured out that being a man wasn't for me: my parents had decided to raise me as such ("family legacy") and it didn't fit and it was causing me hell. There were quite a few heated rows with my parents, the worst of which was on Irene's 16th. Irene referred to me as a girl in front of my parents and oh boy. . . They went ballistic. They insisted that i had been raised as a boy and that was how it should be, I disagreed, and Irene held me close and had my back. I cried for hours after that fight, and she cuddled me through the whole thing. She'd always been there for me when life was throwing me curves.

My 17th, and i'd been on HRT for a month, and i was so much happier. I was staying with her for a weekend, and she'd gotten me a dress. It was the colour of the night sky, with a nebula and stars splashed across it, and I twirled in it and giggled. My hair had grown long, and after i'd put on the dress, we sat down together, and she pulled out her makeup bag, and we were playing about with makeup.  
And she was putting lipstick on me, and i was looking up at her and pouting slightly and she looked into my eyes. . . i'd taken off my contacts, of course, because i was with her and i was safe. And she just stopped, and looked me in the eyes, with her face lit up with love and awe. "You're so beautiful. . . so beautiful and wonderful. . ." Her voice was wavering and croaking, but she didn't need to say anything more. At that point i'd long since had a crush on her i'd constantly dismissed as puppy love (I wasn't 18 yet so it wasn't real blah blah blah) and well, she clearly did too. So we kissed. And it was wonderful. Afterwards, i asked if I could try again, cause I didn't think i'd done it right- i said that meaning it earnestly!- and she laughed and i laughed and. . . 

And all that was gone now.

A whole two decades- from when I was 8 to now- she'd been with me. She'd been with me as I grew up, as I found out who I was, as I became myself. Even as my parents kept me in a stasis of their wishes and easy comfort, she helped me break that and be myself. Without her, I'd be a miserable boy trying to follow the wishes of my parents. With her. . . with her i'd become a happy woman, on her way to a peaceful, happy married life. And that fucker had killed her trying to kill me. And why? Because my eyes were rainbow? I had two horn-stumps on my forehead? I disdained the weakness of flesh?  
What the fuck even were humans? What the fuck was all this pain, this wrong? I punched the concrete wall in frustration, smashing off a couple of flecks and leaving a dent and crack. I didn't notice, I didn't care. That fucking asshole, that fucking symbol. . . I felt my blood start to burn, pain start to metabolize to hate. If these people insisted on targeting folks like me for existing, well, two could play at that game. And I'd win. 

I breathed deeply, pushing against the wall with my metal knuckles, clenching into fists. So much emotion. So much hurt, so much fear, so much anger. I fell back onto the bed. So tired. . . so much to feel, such little energy.


End file.
